Judge left 'physically sick' by child abuse case

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AN EXPERIENCED judge who had to watch horrific videos of young children being sexually abused yesterday told a court that she had felt “physically sick”. Judge Maureen Roddy viewed the videos and similarly disturbing photographs two days ago but found them so distressing that she adjourned sentence until yesterday so she could be “calm and detached” rather than having “an emotive and immediate response.” She told Liverpool Crown Court that the images – involving children as young as seven – showed them “engaged in every conceivable form of sexual activity.” She said that although the prosecution had included a description of what was involved in each one, “what was to come was quite, quite shocking.” “The children were stripped naked, not simply of their clothes but of their dignity and innocence. They have been denied a normal childhood. This is not a victimless crime. “Those children, every one of them, is your victim,” she told 33-year-old Peter Jones. “You and all the others who derive pleasure from looking at those images. “I know nothing about those children, I know not whether they had been sold into the sex trade or abducted. Whatever the case it is truly horrific thought. “They are the most vulnerable members of our society and are entitled to protection from systematic abuse to gratify men like yourselves,” said Judge Roddy. She said that Jones, who used amphetamine while looking at the images, was wholly lacking in remorse and had claimed that the children looked as if they were enjoying themselves. “I can only see children being totally degraded. Any child who appeared to be enjoying was doing so because that child was so damaged by the experience,” said the judge. Jones, formerly of Netherfield, Widnes, pleaded guilty to 17 offences involving downloading a total of 36 indecent child images. He also admitted breaching the Sex Offenders Register by not being at the address he had given. Instead of being at the address in Widnes he was living with a mother-of-four in Wigan, who was known to the social services.